No conspiracy. Surely no conflict between Sporting Director and Manager, because Milner and Luiz were also identified by Marwood.
Maybe we wanted to see what happens with Torres this week before finalising anything. And maybe the illness to Mancini's Father has slowed things down a bit.
Milner is tough. Because we took Barry last year, Villa want to show us they are not our feeder club. We don't want to pay their silly price, but it will be done. The other factor in this transfer is that we give money to villa, they spend it at tottenham, tottenham buy players. so it's probably better to make everyone wait.
Balo is just awaiting a signature and confirmation, afaik.
Luiz is a very difficult deal, partly because other clubs are interested, partly because we'd like to include Robinho in a swap,but mostly because Benfica don't own him outright, so we have to negotiate with third parties as well.